


i've fallen for a line

by unimate



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bad end, Gen, Mind Control, Other, Pesterquest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22885522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unimate/pseuds/unimate
Summary: I look through the observation bay window in her star cruiser, alone in the massive gallery where I was first drawn to her presence. I know where we are going. I feel it in the tips of my fingers. To the very core of my narrative being. We are going there together.(continues from the jane pesterquest bad end. MSPAreader in the thrall of the crockertier headband.)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	i've fallen for a line

It’s been a very long time since I’ve been in space. 

The last time...hmm...maybe when Konyyl and I had been kidnapped off of Alternia by a rabid adult and spirited up out of the atmosphere. Did that actually happen, or was it one of the rewrites? It must have been one of the endings that got wiped out, since I can’t remember what happened after that. The escape, the impact. A squirming mass of timelines lie criss-crosses my memory, slithering like a nest of snakes. Until recently I have been ignoring them as best as I can, testing each step before I put my foot down. Not wanting to tread anywhere that might cause me harm. 

Now I plunge myself in willingly, eager for anything that can make me more useful to her. The only her who matters. Her Imperious Condescension. It’s so ridiculous to recall the days, the weeks, the months I spent chasing anyone’s love but hers. 

And it amuses me to think how the old me had ever found an adult troll frightening or worthy of anything other than disdain. There is no one as terrifying as her, or as beautiful. As resoundingly perfect in every respect. 

I look through the observation bay window in her star cruiser, alone in the massive gallery where I was first drawn to her presence. I know where we are going. I feel it in the tips of my fingers. To the very core of my narrative being. We are going there together. 

Space is dark and shining, but it has nothing on her. Her hair as black as a cut-out of the night, the the flowering shimmer of her eyes. Her vicious smile--

HIC: ayy skinny what you up to  
HIC: monologuin’ about how hot i am again

I spin from the window, taken by surprise. I should have heard her coming, I should have anticipated her needs. I fall into a messy bow, cursing my strange, worthless body and wishing that I would fall to a hundred thousand pieces, and hoping that some of those would be worthy of her, would be of some use to her…

HIC: dont bother with all that mess  
HIC: stop bowin’ and shit  
HIC: i mean its great an youre really fuckin good at it but we got shit to do okay  
HIC: lets vibe

She sits down beside me, folding her long legs underneath her. She is dressed in a black and pink silk robe, tied intricately down the back. It’s much less formal than anything I’ve seen her in before. Her hair is pulled up in two shelled combs, her glasses tucked in the pocket of her robe. Leaning forward, she looks out the window and into the field of stars.

HIC: dark out there amiright

Sparks blink behind my eyes. The headband doesn’t want to let me do this--speak to her casually, or do anything besides worship her with every fiber of my worthless being--

She rolls her eyes. 

HIC: hey that thing makes you boring bae  
HIC: here  
HIC: gimme that 

She reaches out and hits a button on the tiara. I didn’t know it had any other settings except its current--total obliteration of the will. I instantly feel when whatever she’d done takes effect. It’s a slow ripple of volition down my spine. A zipper on a tight sheath dress loosening just the slightest bit. Just enough to breathe. I still feel fierce devotion to her and the need to make sure she is pleased with me, but it isn’t quite so all-consuming. I can think about other things. 

HIC: there ya go  
HIC: thats better right 

I stagger a little, suddenly having to take my own weight, unable to float on love of her alone. I sink to the floor next to her. 

Yes, I tell her. Although I’m not sure if I’d count it as better. 

HIC: hmm?  
HIC: why not 

Because this way I can think. I can know exactly what I’ve done. 

HIC: and what have you done darlin’  
HIC: this oughta be good

She grins. She has an incredible smile. Even without the hypnosis headband pumping endorphins into my cortex, I can tell that much. 

I’ve betrayed everyone I care about, I tell her with a little smile. They’re fighting you, because you’re hurting them. And I left them to join you. 

HIC: hmm  
HIC: yea i can sea how that might be a little fucked up when you put it like that  
HIC: but how about this shit here  
HIC: i am a thousand times better than any of them broke ass fishes 

Yeah, I say. I tell her that I’m pretty sure she’s going to win. 

She laughs. Her teeth are extremely white against the deep grey of her mouth and tongue. 

HIC: babydoll  
HIC: i already won  
HIC: i won a thousand fuckin years ago  
HIC: your funny little rainbow squad and their busted alien friends dont know what they got comin’ for them  
HIC: in a couple sweeps ill swing back down alternia-ways and put that little bitch upstart out of her misery

Who? 

HIC: you know the one  
HIC: little fuchsia who thought she could copy my swagger 

Oh. Right. Feferi. Yeah, I guess she will be doing that. Going back when she grows up and taking Feferi down. 

A slow smile spreads over Her Imperious Condescension’s face. She is radiant and my strange little heart beats faster. 

HIC: actually now that im thinkin’ on it  
HIC: why wait that long  
HIC: whats the dang point of having a magic fuckin god thing on my squad if aint putting you to use? 

I’m not sure what you’re talking about. 

HIC: sure ya do honey  
HIC: lets skip on forwards a little bit and take care a that bitch right now 

The faintest spike of resistance moves inside of me. I feel the tiara seek it out, surround, and neutralize it. It doesn’t hurt so much as...lack. It isn’t pain. It’s not anything. It’s absence. 

I let the Her Imperious Condescension pull me to my feet, my strange, fragile hand in her huge, elegant one. I guess we could do that. 

HIC: hey kid  
HIC: call me meenah

I hold onto her hand and I take us there. 

ZAP! 

I am ashamed to admit that I need more than one try to get it right. We end up way too far in the future at first, in a bombed out quarter of a city, crumbling skyscrapers emblazoned against the twin moons. Meenah seems interested, but not willing to waste any time. I tell her that we actually have all the time in the world. 

MEENAH: still  
MEENAH: ya girl is impatient  
MEENAH: do me another one 

So I do her another one. This time I overreach and snap over into another universe; I can feel the difference now in the pit of my stomach. The little bubble of strangeness that goes through me when I drag anyone through to a place they weren’t meant to be. Somehow, whatever strange creature is running this game feels more accepting of people being out of their own time, instead of in the completely wrong story. 

We emerge on a cold, rainy street. A misshapen statue rises above us, perhaps a tribute to some unknown god. A man on the street looks at us, and I zap us out of there. I see a potential friend in him, and I can’t afford to be anyone’s friend but hers. Not anymore. 

ZAP 

I finally carry my Empress to the correct destination, a stretch of beach I have seen time and time again. The same ship even sits at the jetty, though its sails hang limp and twisted. It looks like it hasn’t moved in years. Did something happen to Vriska? I wouldn’t be surprised, with the way she courts her own destruction. The night creatures all go quiet when we arrive, but one by one they return, the strange chirps and rustling, menacing clicks. 

Meenah shakes her head like she’s clearing out the time cobwebs. She hadn’t even bothered to change out of her silk robe before I brought her here. That’s literally how little she believes she is going to have to try to defeat the Heiress. 

The Heiress. Feferi. My friend. 

She’s not your friend anymore, screams the headband into my brain. She is nothing. 

Of course. How could I have been so stupid? 

MEENAH: place is as shitty as i remember it  
MEENAH: the fuck was i thinkin’ comin’ back here  
MEENAH: shoulda zapped that fish on up  
MEENAH: we still could do it u wanna get out of her bb 

I hear something. Or maybe I feel something. Some familiar presence, the headband reaching out tendrils through my pan to enhance my already considerable latent psychic abilities. I turn, and she’s there. Standing on the end of the jetty, seawater puddled at her feet, hair slicked down. She’s older than the last time I saw her by maybe five or six years. She’s just as pretty, but now she isn’t smiling. 

She looks between us. Back and forth, between Meenah and myself. Me. Meenah. Me. Meenah. 

FEFERI: !!!!  
FEFERI: the empress! 

Her Imperious Condescension faces her progeny. Then she throws back her head and laughs. Feferi screams. She turns and runs, bringing her arms up to move into a dive, back into the inky water of the bay. With an almost lazy motion of her arm, Meenah pulls her trident out of thin air and lobbs it at her descendant. It takes Feferi to the ground and she skids over the wood of the pier. Meenah takes her time walking over there, menace in every slow step. 

MEENAH: sorry baby doll  
MEENAH: cant let you flipper away  
MEENAH: coulda given you a couple more years but eh  
MEENAH: figured id get this shit over and done with 

Feferi cowers, but I see her eyes flicker to me. I tell myself I must be imagining the tiny smile. But then Meenah raises her trident to strike, and it grows bigger. Until Feferi is smirking up at the woman about to kill her. 

“Your Imperious Condescension!” I cry. “Meenah!” 

I shouldn’t have. Instead of keeping her eyes on Feferi, she looks at me. 

But the attack doesn’t come from the heiress. Instead a bright, glowing hoop wraps around the Empress, falling like a golden lasso and tightening at her middle and jerking her off her feet. 

MEENAH: da fuck !! 

She glides elegantly to her feet, but then another golden rope twists around her. Then another, and another, and another. 

MEENAH: um da hell is this shit 

FEFERI: Sorry, Mom. 

She stands up with slow, elegant motions. 

MEENAH: what did u call me? 

Feferi brushes off her skirt. She still doesn’t look at me. 

ROSE: I can’t hold her for much longer, Peixes.  
ROSE: Perhaps we could move to the next phase of things? 

She’s here. Standing in the moonlight--older, taller, hair longer, but she’s here. And suddenly they are all here. All of them, gathered on the rocks and in the surf. The shoreline is crawling with them Every shade of the hemospectrum and the human condition. Every single one of my friends. Who are now my enemies. 

Where did they come from? The stretch of pebbled beach is perfectly flat, with absolutely nothing here to use as camouflage. It’s dark, but not so dark that I would have missed over a dozen people moving in, even with Feferi as a distraction. 

I realize what is happening an instant before it does. With a crackle of hot white energy, you step out from between two moonbeams. I mean. Me. I do. 

I stand at the front of an army of friends, in the strange uniform of the Alternian resistance, black with red cording. It looks odd on your skinny frame. 

My skinny frame. 

Static blares in my head. The headband hates this. It doesn’t want me to be here. It doesn’t want me to see myself. 

Meenah is motionless on the ground. Still conscious--I see her eyes moving, pink and furious--but whatever those golden ropes are seem to be holding her. Still and quiet. 

You look at me. I look at you. I look at me.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice is mine. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but we really had no other choice.” 

I am the bait, you are the trap. 

“I’ll see you again,” you say, raising a hand. Darkness falls. 

GAME OVER


End file.
